Why The Cure's Lol Tolhurst Was Kicked Out of—and Invited Back Into—His Influential Band

The musician talks about his new memoir, his rocky road with The Cure, and who he'd want to play him in a movie about the band.

Oct 19, 2016

Josh Telles

As a founding member of The Cure, Laurence "Lol" Tolhurst knew he was destined to be a writer decades before he actually sat down to pen his memoir, Cured: The Tale of Two Imaginary Boys. He first became aware of that ambition as a bored teenager in the grim, creatively bankrupt London suburbs when he started co-writing lyrics with his childhood best friend Robert Smith, who we all know better as the frontman sporting the late-period Elizabeth Taylor-style teased hair and that open wound of a lipstick smear.

When I meet him, Tolhurst points to his right shoulder and explains that he has a tattoo of two quills crisscrossed over each other.

Of course, I can't see the tattoos because they are covered by his crisp, black button-down shirt paired with a pair of slim black trousers and a black pair of brothel creepers—the dude knows how to stay on brand. Tolhurst's hair matches his outfit in that his short, curly hair is (likely dyed) inky black, with hints of grey peaking out near the sideburns. He's sitting at a table in a conference room at his publicist's office, so his whole look has sort of a goth business casual feel.

"I always knew that I wanted to be a writer," he explains.

And it's not like the 57-year-old doesn't have a wealth of experience from which to draw. After all, he started a band that was the definitive mixtape staple for a generation of indoor kids, theater geeks, and art-class weirdos to share with their crushes. He toured the world, and would go on to influence the next generations of indoor kids, theater geeks, and art-class weirdos to start their own bands. He developed a drinking habit so terrible that it caused his own childhood best friend to kick him out of said band at the height of its popularity. He got sober and stayed that way for 27 years and counting. He unsuccessfully sued his childhood best friend over royalties and lost, resulting in years of icy silence followed by a warm reunion. He even got to join his estranged band in 2011 for an Australian tour celebrating The Cure's first three albums.

Tolhurst started a band that was the definitive mixtape staple for a generation of indoor kids, theater geeks, and art-class weirdos to share with their crushes.

When it came to sitting down and writing out his rise to fame, booze-fueled downfall, and ultimate redemption, he prepared by reading other memoirs. The one that may have had the most influence on his was It's So Easy: And Other Lies by Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan. "I'm reading all the memoirs I could get my hands on," Tolhurst says. "What I liked about Duff's is that it was honest—I believed it."

Lol Tolhurst with Robert Smith, 1983

Fin CostelloGetty Images

For the uninitiated, It's So Easy is fairly unique in terms of rock memoirs. Sure, there are standard issue stories of rock star debauchery, like solid, unchopped hunks of cocaine getting stuck in McKagan's nostrils and how he literally burned his insides because his drinking caused his pancreas to explode. But there's also a lot of stuff about how much he loves being a dad to his daughters and a chapter devoted to the time he sat down to learn how to write an essay so that he, a wealthy rock star, could get into college. Tolhurst was so impressed that he got in touch with McKagan.

"He sends me texts of videos with his daughter's band covering Cure songs," says Tolhurst. "He said, 'Dude, she doesn't even know I know you!' and I said 'Well, maybe I'll get my son to cover a Guns N' Roses song. We're pen pals. We've never actually met."

To be fair, after reading Tolhurst's memoir, Guns N' Roses and The Cure have more in common than one might initially assume. After all, Tolhurst does describe Robert Smith as "a lightning conductor for violence" and describes a scenario the frontman basically got into a kickboxing match with three businessmen when the band toured with Siouxsie and the Banshees in 1979. Can you imagine the pale guy twirling around in the "Just Like Heaven" video trying to fuck up one guy, let alone three?

"There's that dichotomy: the Robert you see on stage, the Robert you know, from videos, that is him, definitely, 100%, that is him as the artist, right?" Tolhurst explained. "But he's also some who would sit here, have a beer and watch football. And that used to upset people. They either want you to be one thing or another. They either want you to be this this weirdo or this normal regular guy, they can't see you being both. And that messes with people's heads sometimes, so that's why things would happen. It messes with their equilibrium."

Then there was the time Smith administered some two-fisted justice after a dude shattered a beer glass right into the side of Tolhurst's face and he had to be hospitalized.

"He's not an overtly violently person, but where we grew up was very violent," Tolhurst explains. "I realized it now. I'm not scared walking around the mean streets of [New York City] or any other city because I grew up there. It's not really about being streetwise, because I'm not that. It's just that I'm not worried about it because it was much more violent back then. There was all this austerity after the second World War, there wasn't much to do, and a lot of boredom."

The Cure in 1987

Michael PutlandGetty Images

But it's not like Tolhurst was any choirboy himself. After all, he did get The Cure kicked off of a tour with Generation X after he accidentally peed on Billy Idol when the blonde frontman was trying to have sex with a groupie standing up in a bathroom stall. Although, if you ask Tolhurst, he's not quite convinced that it's the drunken, unwitting golden shower that cut the tour short.

"I don't know if it was so much the little accident," Tolhurst speculates, "but I think it was more that people were starting to like us a lot and they were actually coming in from the bar and watching us and maybe not quite so interested in Generation X at that time, so I think that's what it was."

Throughout his tenure with the band, Tolhurst was often confronted with the perception that the band was shrouded in gloom and perpetual candlelight.

"On tour, Robert had a playlist of stuff we would listen to and it was always fun, quirky pop stuff," Tolhurst says. "It wasn't things that were dark and serious all the time."

So, what did that playlist consist of?

"A lot of Walt Disney stuff—The Aristocats, for one thing," says Tolhurst. "We learned how to sing it. We'd sing it on the bus, actually, all the parts of all the songs. It was kind of fun."

Admittedly, imagining members of The Cure, lying in their tour bus bunks, trading verses of "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat" is pretty adorable. Devoted fans already know that the music in the film inspired "The Love Cats," an upbeat, highly danceable song about a lovers' suicide pact and the band's first single to crack the Top 10 in the U.K.

"We came out with Pornography and then people were surprised when it was followed with these three fun, joyous singles," says Tolhurst, "and it's like, it wasn't a surprise to me."

Of course, the fun had to end eventually, and for Tolhurst that happened around the recording of Disintegration when his alcoholism impinged on his ability to be useful in any capacity.

"We recorded it in a really nice place out in the countryside at David Gilmour from Pink Floyd's old house, and it was a beautiful studio—great place to record, no one was bothering us," Tolhurst says. "But I spent most of my time sitting about six feet from the control room out in the lounge because, mentally, I couldn't make the few steps to the control room to start doing what I should do. Psychologically, I was trapped inside that space inside your head where you get to the end of it all, and that's really when it occurred to me, 'Shit, I can't do I'm supposed to be here to do.'"

Tolhurst's meltdown after hearing a version of the album led to Smith quietly dismissing him from the band he started via a letter.

Scott Witter

And just like that, Tolhurst went from playing Madison Square Garden to sitting in a hospital detox center, to couchsurfing in Los Angeles after his first wife promptly divorced him. Before Tolhurst worked out his own issues in recovery, he effectively ended his lifelong friendship with Smith over a lawsuit Tolhurst now admits was motivated more by spite than anything else. Years later, Tolhurst swallowed his pride and contacted Smith to make formal amends, which he did backstage at a show at the Palace Theatre in Los Angeles. The old friends have since reconciled, and Tolhurst joined the lineup during the 2011 "Reflections" shows.

"When we get together now, we don't talk about music, we don't talk about business—we talk about our families," Tolhurst says. "I know his family inside out, so that's what you talk about."

And it sounds like Smith was OK with Tolhurst opening up about their at times contentious relationship. "In May I gave him a copy [of the book], and he's been on the road. I know that if he didn't like it, I would have heard from him by now."

Tolhurst is the first to admit that getting kicked out of The Cure probably saved his life. Now, he's looking forward to what his second act in store. When I ask if he had ever considered taking up screenwriting—being an L.A. resident and all—Tolhurst motions towards a copy of his memoir and says "Oh, that's happening as we speak." But who would he want to play him on the big screen?

Without missing a beat, Tolhurst responds, "Robert Downey Jr.—although he couldn't play me as a young person."

Lol Tolhurst has clearly had some time to think about his answer. In any case, Downey Jr. would certainly have a lot to bring to the role. He's no stranger to addiction and recovery, himself, and of making the most of his life's second act.

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